September 12, 2024 • 23 mins
In this week’s episode, Michael and James dissect Donald Trump’s chaotic debate performance, with insights from Michael’s firsthand reporting from the spin room. They explore why Trump’s core supporters stay loyal despite his missteps. With the campaign facing internal strife and unexpected figures like Corey Lewandowski causing further disruption, can Trump keep his base energized? And what are the implications as election day approaches?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
A totally ridiculous performance, a disqualifying performance, a performance that
you can't even fathom, has become part of a national
political conversation. And yet here we are forty six, forty seven,
forty eight, forty nine, possibly fifty percent the people in
(00:26):
this country will vote for him. There's kind of two
points here, this remarkable thing that he has always done,
which is the absolute declaration of what he wants reality
to be. One hands down, I have polling. Where this
polling comes from in forty five minutes, is in the
(00:48):
polls say it's ninety one percent, ninety one percent of
what It doesn't make any difference. Here's a poll says
ninety one. Here's a poll that says eighty eight. The
lowest poll is seventy two. He said, where I don't
know absolutely This was not only did I win, this
was my best debate ever.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Good lord, Welcome to Fire and Fury the Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I'm Michael Wolf and I'm James Truman. Good morning, Michael, James.
You had a late night last night.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I did too late for me. Politics runs late. You
know all these dweebers.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Well could say it's a young person's game, but it
appears not to be anymore. Well, today seems like a
great day to be an anti Trumper. Maybe let's just
say this morning seems like a great day to be
an anti Trumper because the narrative will change.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
The crisis in America, which seems to have dissipated in
the media this morning, is that the country can see
Trump as he is doing what he did, saying what
he says, and still vote for him.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I mean, this is the confound thing. Oh, she won,
she was this, she was that. But it's not as
if the forty seven forty nine percent of the country
is now going to say, oh, he did a bad job,
We're not going to vote for him.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Is that because debates don't change people's minds.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I think that there's probably a couple of things. They
may not change people's minds, except if you're Joe Biden
and you fall down there's something dramatic like that. But
I think more importantly, people like Trump. They like what
he does, they like how he presents. That's Trump. What
do you come to a debate for. You come to
(02:36):
see Trump, and you come to see him to be Trump.
I mean, he was moronic and incoherent and clearly responding
to taking debait in every way, but he was no
different from what he has always been, and what he
has always been has now led to one of the
(02:58):
most extraordinary and often successful political careers in modern times.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well, let me just counter that we've spoken a lot
in the last few weeks about Trump's act being essentially tired,
which is something Kamala kept picking up on the tired playbook.
That comes a point in every performer's life where they
are I don't know Perry Como in the time of
the Beatles, if you like, where the act they have
(03:25):
becomes threadbare and it just doesn't have that compelling quality
that it once had. How do you know we're not
at that inflection point?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
We will know I suppose on November fifth, how close
we have come to that inflection point. But we already
know this is a tied race. I mean, Trump's numbers
have not gone down for the sweep of this campaign.
I think we can go to that show business your
Perry Como analogies.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I've never heard Perry Como, by the way, my parents.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
To him, who is Po's But nevertheless, those guys, and
let's just assume, since we know nothing about Prairie Como.
But those Vegas guys, there were all those performers who
current modern hip America was no longer interested in. But
nevertheless they continued year after year after year to have
(04:20):
these incredibly profitable careers among whomever those people were.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yes, well, let's say they.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Do Tom Jones. You remember Tom Jones.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, let's just say Tom Jones transcends time and trends. Sure, sure,
but let's also say that those guys kept selling, but
they didn't get the youth vote. Donald Trump is counting
on some form of support from the young.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I don't necessarily think that that's true. Actually, if you
count on the young when you're a politician, you usually lose.
You know, this is the morning after, and the morning
after is a media event, and the me is going
crazy for Kamala in the end of Donald Trump. Now,
I remember that was the exact thing that happened with
(05:08):
Hillary and Trump in twenty sixteen, and with Biden and
Trump in twenty twenty. And even if Biden won in
twenty twenty, he won by a hair These Trump performances
in a debate which the media and the liberal sensibility
always pronounces as determinative did you see him. Oh my god,
(05:32):
turns out in all cases not to be and not
to have been.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, I mean I agree with you. Yesterday I actually
watched some of the three debates between Trump and Hillary
mentioned three. I know, but can you imagine there being
three debates? I mean, who would have had the time
to watch those? And of course she was determined to
have won all three, But in fact, watching them now,
I realized that he kind of won them all because
(05:57):
what he said stuck, and what he said came with
that thrill of hearing a politician saying things that politicians
had never said before. To Hillary, you know, you're a disgrace.
You've spent a career in politics. Why are you making
promises for the future when you've got nothing done in
the past. These were all radical things to have heard
(06:18):
back then, and they really stuck. I mean, everything Hillary
said was in the moment well done, but it didn't
stick because it wasn't revolutionary. It didn't feel like a
new truth. It felt like the same old, same old.
But again, I have that feeling that now that he's
you know, had a term in office and a four
years in opposition, he's lost that ability to be the
(06:38):
clean anti politician politician. I mean, he's had no end
of failures himself in office.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
And afterwards, well, you could go to work for the
New York Times. Yeah, from your lips to God's ears.
But I think the word memorable is important. Is you
watched the debate and a day later, a week later,
a month later, on November fifth, what do you remember?
And it doesn't mean win or lose, It means what
(07:05):
do you remember. I got to think this is one
element of what makes this phenomenon. You remember him because
he's so I mean, her word was extreme. Last night,
You're gonna remember people eating dogs. Anything you remember is
a positive, and that's a kind of media point because
(07:27):
we remember nothing. So whatever stands out is the one
thing that you carry forward.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Okay, So the one thing I probably carry forward from
last night was he had the eating of the pets
in Ohio and then to Kamala.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Now she wants to do TRANSDN You know my feeling
about dogs.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I know that was for you. Now she wants to
do transgender operations on illegal aliens who are in prison. Now,
I remember that, but I remember that in the same
way I remember when my daughter was six saying your
poop head with dragon breath. It was that ridiculous, that child,
that laughable, charming, and a six year old in a
(08:03):
seventy eight year old.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I mean, you don't have to convince me that the
guy is a moron. But on a more structural point,
let's just accept that his bass has seen him so
many times they're not reevaluating him. And let's accept that
her base got what they wanted out of this debate
and more. And she's probably went a considerable distance to
(08:27):
solidify in her support. If it was wavering that idea
that people don't know her and they want to know
more about her, she probably went a good distance to
satisfying that issue. Great, so we're back to these three
hundred or whatever swing voters. We don't know who these
people are, but I would bet that they might be
(08:49):
best described by people who don't watch debates.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yeah, you read the election heads and it's you know,
come out and needs to gain five points with male
Hispanics who've finish two years of college. This stuff was
completely abstract and unprovable. I don't know. My thesis is
that whatever she might have lost in those little pockets,
she's gained in people like yourself who love pets. I'm
(09:12):
being facetious, but it's an interesting string of events, you know,
from Christine Nomes shooting her dog to jd Vance's cat
ladies to last night the eating of the illegal Hyatians
eating Gni pigs catenn You like that one? Read yeah, okay, okay.
So and it culminated in probably the greatest event of
(09:35):
last night that Taylor Swift is supporting Kamala Harris on
Instagram with a picture of her cat signed cat Lady.
So if they've lost the pet lovers, maybe it doesn't
matter that the Republicans might gain Hispanic males with two
years of college.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Well yeah, but what are those people who don't pay
attention to any of this? Those are where the swing
voters are going to be. Because if you promote paid
attention to anything here, you have a position. You know
who you're going to vote for.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
That's my point. Pet lovers are a level of heavenly
abode far above the day to days of politics. They
are moved by things and swung by things that are
extracurricular to political process.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But they're not directly swung by things because they're not
paying attention to everyone.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Everyone in America knows today that Trump made a ludicrous
assertion that illegal hyatians are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I think you're wrong about that. I think that a
profound number of people are completely uninterested in this and
completely separate from it, and this is not remotely part
of their lives. And even to suggest any of it
is like talking about an event on a planet far away.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
This sounds to me like something that the Trump campaign believes.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
The Trump campaign believes that their people are paying rapped
attention to them, which is probably true.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Actually, Okay, so how do they feel about what happened
last night?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
They feel good about it because they always feel well,
let's listen. They and he Okay, so he appeared forty
five minutes later on the spin room floor.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Oh saw, Yes, how did he appear?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
He appeared as Donald Trump, you know, ahead of hair.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
But this was a disruptive event because the candidates themselves
never appear on the spin room floor. After a debate,
you send out all of your people, you know. Vance
was on the floor, Doug Burgham was on the floor,
Lara Trump was on the floor, and then they all
go around with signs, by.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
The way, what like demonstrations, Yeah, exactly identifying because signs, Yes,
who's who's there? Ye, Donald Trump carry a signs and then.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
The luxury of being Donald Trump. I mean everybody else
is actually actually saying who's that? Who's that? Because you
don't really know. Doug Burgham is not It doesn't really
go there. There's there's Doug Bergen.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
It's not Doug Booger, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
And the Democrats too, are there is that Josh Shapiro.
I think that's Josh Shapiro. No, that's not that's not
Josh Shapiro. If he only had a sign and then
there's a sign Josh Shapiro, so Trump Trump is there,
and then immediately everybody the conclusion was, that's how bad
the debate was, that he has to come out now
(12:27):
and he has to do his own spinning, which he
did the Spin room. The entire American and international media
is gathered there and other people are talking to it.
He must have said, well, why don't I just go over?
I think one of the effects of that becomes part
of his beyond stick, almost part of his charm. He
(12:48):
is afraid of nothing.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
He just wades out he's afraid of being alone, yes, of.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Course, yes, but we'll get to that some other And
since he's never.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Alone, it's right, Yeah, he's figured that one out.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
But that becomes then one of the memorable things about that.
Whatever he does, Trump is always fighting wherever he is,
however down he might seem. He has no doubts. He
does what nobody else can do. Nobody else could tolerate
that kind of humiliation and then pretend it just doesn't exist.
(13:28):
Something we all wish we could do, because we've all
been humiliated and what we feel is our humiliation, and
we would not be humiliated if we didn't feel it,
and he doesn't seem to feel it. So I think
that's part of the Trump show. That is part of
what you see and what you respond to.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
What was the feeling within the campaign going into the debate?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
The preparation for the debate, They felt within the campaign
was orderly. He was attentive. Usually he not, but this
was as near to a normal prep for any politician
as the campaign could imagine it was possible to achieve
with Donald Trump. That was the kind of word. It
was orderly. At the same time, and this is yet
(14:15):
to be clearly written about. But I would assume that
this is going to start to break imminently. The campaign
itself is imploding some of the words that I got.
There is civil war going on in the Trump campaign.
This is the most utterly fucked up situation that at
(14:36):
least one person expressed to me that this person had
ever seen in a political context. And so what has
happened here is that we spoke about this last week.
Is the Corey Lewandowski effect the factor. We'll be back
(14:57):
right after the break. So to briefly recap, Corey Lewandowski,
Trump's first professional political hire was the campaign manager. He
managed within the Trump campaign to alienate everyone, including the
(15:19):
Trump family, and then was ejected from the campaign, but
nevertheless has stayed very closely in the Trump orbit. Last
week or maybe now, about ten days ago, he goes
in to see Trump and says, you know, the campaign
is falling apart. There's mismanagement everywhere. Things are catastrophe. Spending
(15:42):
is out of control. So Corey, in this long list
of his complaints about management, Trump said, well, you know,
if you have some ideas about how we can save money,
that would be great. Corey goes away. Then announces to
the campaign that he's in charge of the budget now
(16:02):
and that all spending decisions have to go through him,
all ads spending, all media buys, and all hiring because
that's involved spending money has to go through him. So
he's effectively then suddenly made himself the chief of the campaign,
the campaign manager. So Susie Wiles and Chris La Savita,
who are still there, they're on the sixth floor of
(16:25):
the West Palm Beach headquarters and Corey is on the
second floor with the political team. Suddenly they don't know
what to do. I mean, and you can't go to
Trump and say who's in charge? Because Trump is in charge.
That will not be That will not please Trump. He
doesn't want to spend the time thinking about this. Therefore,
(16:46):
you suddenly have a campaign organization, and this is going
on right now as we speak, in which nobody knows
who's running it. This may be more determinative than a
debate that a presidential campaign, a national campaign, is one
of the supreme management challenges. Yeah, you know, because most
(17:07):
of the people on the staff are inexperience, they're young.
You have to raise this enormous amount of money quickly
and even more importantly, you have to spend it quickly
and wisely. At this point to suddenly have a campaign
organization in which you don't know who's running it, it's
a civil war. It means that this could be the
(17:29):
thing that defeats him.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, does this campaign dysfunction relate in any way to
that bizarre press conference Trump gave last Friday.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
No, that was strictly Trump's dysfunction.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Which, to recapitulate, was where he gave a laundry list
of all these salt cases from women.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Again, it wasn't just unbelievable. I mean, how can that be?
And again we're dealing with this extraordinary phenomen in which
a politician could do the exact opposite one hundred and
eighty degrees from what a politician should do, and he
does it. And this was the zenith of that. I mean,
(18:13):
in the circumstances, they went into court to try to
get this verdict, the Eging Carol verdict thrown out. There
was a hearing, and then he came back from the
hearing and went to Trump Tower and did a press
conference in the lobby, the flags behind him, and he
proceeded to vilify her and Let's remember there's also a
(18:35):
ninety three million dollar judgment against him for libeling her.
And so he proceeded once again, and then didn't just
stop there, but went on to outline in quite some
detail the yes of two other women against him. It
was jaw dropping.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And they went on for forty five minutes.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And then also he did this with his lawyers behind him,
and then he proceeded to castigate his lawyers, my very
poor lawyers. So I don't know if you can begin
to explain this in political terms. Well you can't, which
is again part of the media problem with this, yes,
(19:22):
that there are no terms to explain what he does
and why he does and how he gets away with this.
One of the things about the debate that I think
we should come back to because I think it's his
key vulnerability. The Democrats have been saying that abortion is
the Republican weakness since Roe v.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Wade.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I think maybe that's even underestimating it. And actually I
thought that when she responded to the abortion question last night,
was that was her moment, and I was surprised that
she didn't actually come back to it. She may just
have felt we did that we scored scored the I mean,
he's obviously recognized this and has tried to move his
(20:04):
position to something that's much more acceptable with these yeah,
three hundred swing voters. But the effect that he can't
do it. But I think that it's also clear that
he doesn't understand this. I mean, when he was talking
about fertilization IVF or, I.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Mean, yeah, and he was an expert on fertilization.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I think that everybody can see this is an issue
he has never let trouble him in any regard, never
given any thought. The abortions that he paid for were
just you know, he paid the money and somebody else's
in the business. I think that that becomes one of
the glaring things. Also, abortion is this interesting issue. All
(20:50):
other issues are somewhat abstract tariffs, taxes, crime. The abortion
issue is something that everybody except Trump, I think, can
see in a highly personal way.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
I found it so strange that he would again try
and bring up the post birth abortions, the the murders of.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Again and again. I think that sends the message he
doesn't know what he's talking about. Tariffs, he can talk
through his hat, and you know, nobody really knows, do
you know about tariffs doesn't. But on this issue, this
issue I think is the fatal issue.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
So in this morning after of liberal celebration, what's your Trump,
I'm me to tell you of the odds.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
You know, I think certainly worth. The New York Times.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Poll this was an outlier the day before.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yesterday had him a point ahead, and I think that's
who's ahead and who's not at a point is irrelevant.
But the idea that this is deadlocked and that her
rise has the pulling piece will say plateaued, and so
I think that just means it's deadlocked. And so that
(22:07):
this means that this that the race is going to
be determined.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
By you know, I meant.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, Taylor Swift or.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Always.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I think worth repeating the Steve Bannon formulation that in
these close races, it's all about what happens in the
last two weeks.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
To be continued. Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
That's all the time we have for today, and we'll
be back next week.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Fire and Fury the podcast is hosted and executive produced
by Michael Wolfe and James Truman. The producers are Adam
Waller and Emily Maronoff, Executive producers for Kaleidoscope are Mangesh
Hadageta and Os Valoshian executive producers for iHeart On, Nikki
Ito and Katrina novel
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Mmmm
A totally ridiculous performance, a disqualifying performance, a performance that
you can't even fathom, has become part of a national
political conversation. And yet here we are forty six, forty seven,
forty eight, forty nine, possibly fifty percent the people in
(00:26):
this country will vote for him. There's kind of two
points here, this remarkable thing that he has always done,
which is the absolute declaration of what he wants reality
to be. One hands down, I have polling. Where this
polling comes from in forty five minutes, is in the
(00:48):
polls say it's ninety one percent, ninety one percent of
what It doesn't make any difference. Here's a poll says
ninety one. Here's a poll that says eighty eight. The
lowest poll is seventy two. He said, where I don't
know absolutely This was not only did I win, this
was my best debate ever.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Good lord, Welcome to Fire and Fury the Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I'm Michael Wolf and I'm James Truman. Good morning, Michael, James.
You had a late night last night.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I did too late for me. Politics runs late. You
know all these dweebers.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Well could say it's a young person's game, but it
appears not to be anymore. Well, today seems like a
great day to be an anti Trumper. Maybe let's just
say this morning seems like a great day to be
an anti Trumper because the narrative will change.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
The crisis in America, which seems to have dissipated in
the media this morning, is that the country can see
Trump as he is doing what he did, saying what
he says, and still vote for him.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I mean, this is the confound thing. Oh, she won,
she was this, she was that. But it's not as
if the forty seven forty nine percent of the country
is now going to say, oh, he did a bad job,
We're not going to vote for him.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Is that because debates don't change people's minds.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I think that there's probably a couple of things. They
may not change people's minds, except if you're Joe Biden
and you fall down there's something dramatic like that. But
I think more importantly, people like Trump. They like what
he does, they like how he presents. That's Trump. What
do you come to a debate for. You come to
(02:36):
see Trump, and you come to see him to be Trump.
I mean, he was moronic and incoherent and clearly responding
to taking debait in every way, but he was no
different from what he has always been, and what he
has always been has now led to one of the
(02:58):
most extraordinary and often successful political careers in modern times.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well, let me just counter that we've spoken a lot
in the last few weeks about Trump's act being essentially tired,
which is something Kamala kept picking up on the tired playbook.
That comes a point in every performer's life where they
are I don't know Perry Como in the time of
the Beatles, if you like, where the act they have
(03:25):
becomes threadbare and it just doesn't have that compelling quality
that it once had. How do you know we're not
at that inflection point?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
We will know I suppose on November fifth, how close
we have come to that inflection point. But we already
know this is a tied race. I mean, Trump's numbers
have not gone down for the sweep of this campaign.
I think we can go to that show business your
Perry Como analogies.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I've never heard Perry Como, by the way, my parents.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
To him, who is Po's But nevertheless, those guys, and
let's just assume, since we know nothing about Prairie Como.
But those Vegas guys, there were all those performers who
current modern hip America was no longer interested in. But
nevertheless they continued year after year after year to have
(04:20):
these incredibly profitable careers among whomever those people were.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yes, well, let's say they.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Do Tom Jones. You remember Tom Jones.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, let's just say Tom Jones transcends time and trends. Sure, sure,
but let's also say that those guys kept selling, but
they didn't get the youth vote. Donald Trump is counting
on some form of support from the young.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I don't necessarily think that that's true. Actually, if you
count on the young when you're a politician, you usually lose.
You know, this is the morning after, and the morning
after is a media event, and the me is going
crazy for Kamala in the end of Donald Trump. Now,
I remember that was the exact thing that happened with
(05:08):
Hillary and Trump in twenty sixteen, and with Biden and
Trump in twenty twenty. And even if Biden won in
twenty twenty, he won by a hair These Trump performances
in a debate which the media and the liberal sensibility
always pronounces as determinative did you see him. Oh my god,
(05:32):
turns out in all cases not to be and not
to have been.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, I mean I agree with you. Yesterday I actually
watched some of the three debates between Trump and Hillary
mentioned three. I know, but can you imagine there being
three debates? I mean, who would have had the time
to watch those? And of course she was determined to
have won all three, But in fact, watching them now,
I realized that he kind of won them all because
(05:57):
what he said stuck, and what he said came with
that thrill of hearing a politician saying things that politicians
had never said before. To Hillary, you know, you're a disgrace.
You've spent a career in politics. Why are you making
promises for the future when you've got nothing done in
the past. These were all radical things to have heard
(06:18):
back then, and they really stuck. I mean, everything Hillary
said was in the moment well done, but it didn't
stick because it wasn't revolutionary. It didn't feel like a
new truth. It felt like the same old, same old.
But again, I have that feeling that now that he's
you know, had a term in office and a four
years in opposition, he's lost that ability to be the
(06:38):
clean anti politician politician. I mean, he's had no end
of failures himself in office.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
And afterwards, well, you could go to work for the
New York Times. Yeah, from your lips to God's ears.
But I think the word memorable is important. Is you
watched the debate and a day later, a week later,
a month later, on November fifth, what do you remember?
And it doesn't mean win or lose, It means what
(07:05):
do you remember. I got to think this is one
element of what makes this phenomenon. You remember him because
he's so I mean, her word was extreme. Last night,
You're gonna remember people eating dogs. Anything you remember is
a positive, and that's a kind of media point because
(07:27):
we remember nothing. So whatever stands out is the one
thing that you carry forward.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Okay, So the one thing I probably carry forward from
last night was he had the eating of the pets
in Ohio and then to Kamala.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Now she wants to do TRANSDN You know my feeling
about dogs.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I know that was for you. Now she wants to
do transgender operations on illegal aliens who are in prison. Now,
I remember that, but I remember that in the same
way I remember when my daughter was six saying your
poop head with dragon breath. It was that ridiculous, that child,
that laughable, charming, and a six year old in a
(08:03):
seventy eight year old.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I mean, you don't have to convince me that the
guy is a moron. But on a more structural point,
let's just accept that his bass has seen him so
many times they're not reevaluating him. And let's accept that
her base got what they wanted out of this debate
and more. And she's probably went a considerable distance to
(08:27):
solidify in her support. If it was wavering that idea
that people don't know her and they want to know
more about her, she probably went a good distance to
satisfying that issue. Great, so we're back to these three
hundred or whatever swing voters. We don't know who these
people are, but I would bet that they might be
(08:49):
best described by people who don't watch debates.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yeah, you read the election heads and it's you know,
come out and needs to gain five points with male
Hispanics who've finish two years of college. This stuff was
completely abstract and unprovable. I don't know. My thesis is
that whatever she might have lost in those little pockets,
she's gained in people like yourself who love pets. I'm
(09:12):
being facetious, but it's an interesting string of events, you know,
from Christine Nomes shooting her dog to jd Vance's cat
ladies to last night the eating of the illegal Hyatians
eating Gni pigs catenn You like that one? Read yeah, okay, okay.
So and it culminated in probably the greatest event of
(09:35):
last night that Taylor Swift is supporting Kamala Harris on
Instagram with a picture of her cat signed cat Lady.
So if they've lost the pet lovers, maybe it doesn't
matter that the Republicans might gain Hispanic males with two
years of college.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Well yeah, but what are those people who don't pay
attention to any of this? Those are where the swing
voters are going to be. Because if you promote paid
attention to anything here, you have a position. You know
who you're going to vote for.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
That's my point. Pet lovers are a level of heavenly
abode far above the day to days of politics. They
are moved by things and swung by things that are
extracurricular to political process.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But they're not directly swung by things because they're not
paying attention to everyone.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Everyone in America knows today that Trump made a ludicrous
assertion that illegal hyatians are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I think you're wrong about that. I think that a
profound number of people are completely uninterested in this and
completely separate from it, and this is not remotely part
of their lives. And even to suggest any of it
is like talking about an event on a planet far away.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
This sounds to me like something that the Trump campaign believes.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
The Trump campaign believes that their people are paying rapped
attention to them, which is probably true.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Actually, Okay, so how do they feel about what happened
last night?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
They feel good about it because they always feel well,
let's listen. They and he Okay, so he appeared forty
five minutes later on the spin room floor.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Oh saw, Yes, how did he appear?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
He appeared as Donald Trump, you know, ahead of hair.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
But this was a disruptive event because the candidates themselves
never appear on the spin room floor. After a debate,
you send out all of your people, you know. Vance
was on the floor, Doug Burgham was on the floor,
Lara Trump was on the floor, and then they all
go around with signs, by.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
The way, what like demonstrations, Yeah, exactly identifying because signs, Yes,
who's who's there? Ye, Donald Trump carry a signs and then.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
The luxury of being Donald Trump. I mean everybody else
is actually actually saying who's that? Who's that? Because you
don't really know. Doug Burgham is not It doesn't really
go there. There's there's Doug Bergen.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
It's not Doug Booger, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
And the Democrats too, are there is that Josh Shapiro.
I think that's Josh Shapiro. No, that's not that's not
Josh Shapiro. If he only had a sign and then
there's a sign Josh Shapiro, so Trump Trump is there,
and then immediately everybody the conclusion was, that's how bad
the debate was, that he has to come out now
(12:27):
and he has to do his own spinning, which he
did the Spin room. The entire American and international media
is gathered there and other people are talking to it.
He must have said, well, why don't I just go over?
I think one of the effects of that becomes part
of his beyond stick, almost part of his charm. He
(12:48):
is afraid of nothing.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
He just wades out he's afraid of being alone, yes, of.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Course, yes, but we'll get to that some other And
since he's never.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Alone, it's right, Yeah, he's figured that one out.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
But that becomes then one of the memorable things about that.
Whatever he does, Trump is always fighting wherever he is,
however down he might seem. He has no doubts. He
does what nobody else can do. Nobody else could tolerate
that kind of humiliation and then pretend it just doesn't exist.
(13:28):
Something we all wish we could do, because we've all
been humiliated and what we feel is our humiliation, and
we would not be humiliated if we didn't feel it,
and he doesn't seem to feel it. So I think
that's part of the Trump show. That is part of
what you see and what you respond to.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
What was the feeling within the campaign going into the debate?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
The preparation for the debate, They felt within the campaign
was orderly. He was attentive. Usually he not, but this
was as near to a normal prep for any politician
as the campaign could imagine it was possible to achieve
with Donald Trump. That was the kind of word. It
was orderly. At the same time, and this is yet
(14:15):
to be clearly written about. But I would assume that
this is going to start to break imminently. The campaign
itself is imploding some of the words that I got.
There is civil war going on in the Trump campaign.
This is the most utterly fucked up situation that at
(14:36):
least one person expressed to me that this person had
ever seen in a political context. And so what has
happened here is that we spoke about this last week.
Is the Corey Lewandowski effect the factor. We'll be back
(14:57):
right after the break. So to briefly recap, Corey Lewandowski,
Trump's first professional political hire was the campaign manager. He
managed within the Trump campaign to alienate everyone, including the
(15:19):
Trump family, and then was ejected from the campaign, but
nevertheless has stayed very closely in the Trump orbit. Last
week or maybe now, about ten days ago, he goes
in to see Trump and says, you know, the campaign
is falling apart. There's mismanagement everywhere. Things are catastrophe. Spending
(15:42):
is out of control. So Corey, in this long list
of his complaints about management, Trump said, well, you know,
if you have some ideas about how we can save money,
that would be great. Corey goes away. Then announces to
the campaign that he's in charge of the budget now
(16:02):
and that all spending decisions have to go through him,
all ads spending, all media buys, and all hiring because
that's involved spending money has to go through him. So
he's effectively then suddenly made himself the chief of the campaign,
the campaign manager. So Susie Wiles and Chris La Savita,
who are still there, they're on the sixth floor of
(16:25):
the West Palm Beach headquarters and Corey is on the
second floor with the political team. Suddenly they don't know
what to do. I mean, and you can't go to
Trump and say who's in charge? Because Trump is in charge.
That will not be That will not please Trump. He
doesn't want to spend the time thinking about this. Therefore,
(16:46):
you suddenly have a campaign organization, and this is going
on right now as we speak, in which nobody knows
who's running it. This may be more determinative than a
debate that a presidential campaign, a national campaign, is one
of the supreme management challenges. Yeah, you know, because most
(17:07):
of the people on the staff are inexperience, they're young.
You have to raise this enormous amount of money quickly
and even more importantly, you have to spend it quickly
and wisely. At this point to suddenly have a campaign
organization in which you don't know who's running it, it's
a civil war. It means that this could be the
(17:29):
thing that defeats him.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, does this campaign dysfunction relate in any way to
that bizarre press conference Trump gave last Friday.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
No, that was strictly Trump's dysfunction.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Which, to recapitulate, was where he gave a laundry list
of all these salt cases from women.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Again, it wasn't just unbelievable. I mean, how can that be?
And again we're dealing with this extraordinary phenomen in which
a politician could do the exact opposite one hundred and
eighty degrees from what a politician should do, and he
does it. And this was the zenith of that. I mean,
(18:13):
in the circumstances, they went into court to try to
get this verdict, the Eging Carol verdict thrown out. There
was a hearing, and then he came back from the
hearing and went to Trump Tower and did a press
conference in the lobby, the flags behind him, and he
proceeded to vilify her and Let's remember there's also a
(18:35):
ninety three million dollar judgment against him for libeling her.
And so he proceeded once again, and then didn't just
stop there, but went on to outline in quite some
detail the yes of two other women against him. It
was jaw dropping.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And they went on for forty five minutes.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And then also he did this with his lawyers behind him,
and then he proceeded to castigate his lawyers, my very
poor lawyers. So I don't know if you can begin
to explain this in political terms. Well you can't, which
is again part of the media problem with this, yes,
(19:22):
that there are no terms to explain what he does
and why he does and how he gets away with this.
One of the things about the debate that I think
we should come back to because I think it's his
key vulnerability. The Democrats have been saying that abortion is
the Republican weakness since Roe v.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Wade.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I think maybe that's even underestimating it. And actually I
thought that when she responded to the abortion question last night,
was that was her moment, and I was surprised that
she didn't actually come back to it. She may just
have felt we did that we scored scored the I mean,
he's obviously recognized this and has tried to move his
(20:04):
position to something that's much more acceptable with these yeah,
three hundred swing voters. But the effect that he can't
do it. But I think that it's also clear that
he doesn't understand this. I mean, when he was talking
about fertilization IVF or, I.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Mean, yeah, and he was an expert on fertilization.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I think that everybody can see this is an issue
he has never let trouble him in any regard, never
given any thought. The abortions that he paid for were
just you know, he paid the money and somebody else's
in the business. I think that that becomes one of
the glaring things. Also, abortion is this interesting issue. All
(20:50):
other issues are somewhat abstract tariffs, taxes, crime. The abortion
issue is something that everybody except Trump, I think, can
see in a highly personal way.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
I found it so strange that he would again try
and bring up the post birth abortions, the the murders of.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Again and again. I think that sends the message he
doesn't know what he's talking about. Tariffs, he can talk
through his hat, and you know, nobody really knows, do
you know about tariffs doesn't. But on this issue, this
issue I think is the fatal issue.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
So in this morning after of liberal celebration, what's your Trump,
I'm me to tell you of the odds.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
You know, I think certainly worth. The New York Times.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Poll this was an outlier the day before.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yesterday had him a point ahead, and I think that's
who's ahead and who's not at a point is irrelevant.
But the idea that this is deadlocked and that her
rise has the pulling piece will say plateaued, and so
I think that just means it's deadlocked. And so that
(22:07):
this means that this that the race is going to
be determined.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
By you know, I meant.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, Taylor Swift or.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Always.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I think worth repeating the Steve Bannon formulation that in
these close races, it's all about what happens in the
last two weeks.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
To be continued. Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
That's all the time we have for today, and we'll
be back next week.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Fire and Fury the podcast is hosted and executive produced
by Michael Wolfe and James Truman. The producers are Adam
Waller and Emily Maronoff, Executive producers for Kaleidoscope are Mangesh
Hadageta and Os Valoshian executive producers for iHeart On, Nikki
Ito and Katrina novel
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Mmmm
Hosts And Creators
James Truman
Michael Wolff
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